The Value of Friendships

“Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother’s house in the day of thy calamity: for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.” (Pr 27:10 AV)

“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” (Pr 27:17 AV)

One cannot stress enough the importance of friendship.  In a generation that conducts relationships by electronic media, we have lost the ability to make and maintain deep friendships.  At the click of a button, we can unfriend someone.  They say something we find offensive or do not make us feel as we think we should, off they go.  In a world that is so busy trying to enjoy the material things of life, we have cast off human relationships as non-essential.  We sit in our private worlds assuming life is all it can be in the quietness of one’s own heart and mind.  We seldom make the effort to establish deep and lasting relationships wherein we and the other can grow.  Because our families, by and large, are made up of victims of failed homes, human relationships are seen as something that hurts instead of help.  We found this true of military families.  Because their families were rotated out every three years, the children did not establish deep connections with their own peers.  Friendships are shallow.  Friendships are not a necessity.  However, the word of God says something completely different.

By nature, I am an introvert.  Growing up, I didn’t have a whole lot of friends.  The friendships I did have were deep and lasting.  They were few in number, but they outlasted many of my peers.  There was Scott.  He was my closest friend from the earliest times of grade school until high school.  Because of my father’s work, I went to three different high schools and never developed friendships to that level for many years.  Too busy working and going to school, there were not many opportunities to develop deep friendships.  Getting married to my best friend sure helped a lot.  However, surrendering to the ministry meant for me a transient life.  Going from one church to the next, we never settled down long enough to develop a close friendship.  That is, until about twenty years ago.  The LORD provided a close friend who has been my counselor and confidant ever since.  And I, his.

There are two benefits to friendship as listed above.  Friends tend to be there when family cannot, or will not, be there.  They are accessible in the day of adversity.  They are there when we are anxious, confused, or simply not ourselves.  They accept us and love us.  Faults and all.  There is a built-in bias that a family possesses towards one of its own.  A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and among his own kindred.  A friend is not so.  A friend knows all those faults but chooses to minimize them.  Secondly, a good friend is the instrument God uses for our own maturity.  As a friend, we are also the refiner.  Iron sharpens iron.  Both are made the finer for it.

Friendships are not only valuable.  They are necessary.  Like David and Jonathan, we need to be a friend.  We need a friend.  To say we can survive this life without someone who is our equal is to say we wish not to grow.  We don’t have a problem being a subordinate or a mentor.  These relationships are not all that deep.  But to have a friend in whom we invest deep emotional capital and he in us is the greater relationship.  It is one that should be pursued, prayed for, welcomed, and maintained.  When I moved from my home city and lost Scott, I prayed the LORD would send another.  There were some awfully lonely years in between.  There were nights I wept myself to sleep because of the loneliness I felt.  Jesus is indeed a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.  But I needed that close friendship.  I hope you realize how lonely you are and how much you need a friendship that can complement your weaknesses and needs and he yours.